Groundhog’s Day

One of my kids met a friend the other day at a park for some social distancing socializing. I was happy she was able to do that because she had recently hit her point of frustration as an extravert forced to be away from her people where she shouted in frustration, “I just want a conversation with someone not related to me and not in this fucking house!”

Oh, Kid – we all feel ya!

When she got back, I asked her how it was. She shook her head as she walked away from me towards the kitchen to get a drink of water.

“Weird. We literally spent the first hour together not knowing what to say – what to talk about. I mean, our days all look the same. We get up. We do school online. We do homework. We eat lunch, then dinner. We watch shit we find on Netflix. Then we go to bed to do it over again. I mean, what do you really have to talk about?”

Groundhog’s Day. She seriously was reminding me of the Bill Murray movie where he wakes up every day just to relive the day again – not feeling like time is really moving forwards as each day is the same thing again. But her description isn’t wrong.

I waked up to my alarm.

I get up and throw some clothes on – jeans, tshirt, and hoodie.

I go out to the kitchen and make myself a latte – oat milk, scoop of collagen, and a double shot.

I grab my phone and my wireless headphones and head upstairs to my computer.

I check work email. I check our issue log. I check in with the help desk manager to see if anything is on fire. Then I log onto my 8am leadership meeting.

I usually get my second latte about 9-9:30.

I get lunch at about 11-ish.

I tell the kids to shut up. I take my meetings and my calls and email.

Then, I log off of work at 4ish. Toss on some workout clothes, and head out for an hour long walk.

I come home. I make dinner. I maybe watch TV or take a bath.

Then I head to bed to do it all over again the next day.

Each day is the same.

I found that even when talking to my work crew, we ask are they surviving with everyone at home and the kids doing online school. We don’t ask about weekends. We don’t ask about what has been going on because everyone is pretty much in the same space. Living a variation of the same day over and over again.

All of us trying to keep our sanity while we wait for this to end or start to lift at least – when we can start easing into the broader world once again. Then we can all stumble through the awkwardness of trying to have conversations the extends beyond the feeling that each day is just the same. And we can actually ask “how’s your day” and have something new to say.